


Tournesol-Searching

by ladytiresias



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: F/F, Gen, Hunters & Hunting, Treasure Hunting, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 14:59:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2154855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladytiresias/pseuds/ladytiresias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ashe can only hope that, when all is said and done, the seemingly endless search for the blade's composite materials proves worth it.  </p>
<p>In the meantime, she can ogle Fran and try to ignore just how little sense some of the loot requirements make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tournesol-Searching

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oneill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneill/gifts).



> Written for the prompt "Final Fantasy XII, Ashe and Any, farming ingredients for the Tournesol."

The thief’s gloves feel strange on Ashe’s fingers; they are tighter than is her preference, in spite of the gloves leaving her fingertips exposed. The fabric of the palms and the bottoms of the fingers is suited to a tight grip, but the cloth used for the back of the fingers and hands is slippery-smooth by comparison. “They are uncomfortable,” she says, “but seem quite suited to their purpose. Who will be wearing them?” she adds, looking up to the rest of her entourage. Naturally, her eyes catch on those with the most practice in thievery: the sky pirate, his Viera partner, and the boy urchin, each standing with interest plain in their eyes. Penelo’s disinterest is plain, and Basch has already returned to his own shopping, happy to set his sights on weapons more mundane than the blade Ashe seeks. 

In the end, it is Fran who slides the gloves onto her own fingers, and Ashe can admit within the privacy of her own mind that they look as handsome and snug on the Viera’s hands as her armor looks on the rest of her body. Wearing a subtle smile, she slips a newly gloved hand into her partner’s pocket and back out without saying so much as a word, his pocketbook gripped between two fingers and him all unawares. It is only Ashe’s answering, less subtle smirk that gives the theft away; said smirk fades when Fran tickles Balthier under the chin with his pilfered property in a way that is overtly flirtatious. Ashe masks her feelings -- foolish and baseless as they were -- with an air of neutrality, then follows her knight’s example by proceeding with her own shopping.

Unlike Basch, however, Ashe seeks to barter for information rather than for steel or leather, and it doesn’t take long for her to set the matter of her mistargeted lusts aside when she is busy trying to filter through the endless gossip and noise of the Balfonheim markets. Of the Serpentarii, there is nought to be heard, but it does not take long before pieces of information regarding a hunk of gemsteel and an empyreal soul both dovetail in a way that cannot be anything but providence. 

\------------

“Ashelia, I will admit that I am both skilled and swift, but I am not certain that it is possible to steal from a chocobo, whether it is fleeing from me or facing me in combat.” Fran’s voice is cool and her expression calm, but she tarries in sliding those fine gloves onto her clawed fingers. 

Almost, Ashe falls into the trap of letting her gaze linger on the Viera’s digits, but she keeps a firm rein on her faculties, instead fixing her eyes on Fran’s own. “It bears both steel and soul, and while the steel can be cut free of its corpse when the bird has fallen, I fear that the soul must be acquired by theft, or not at all.”

“Does that really make sense, though?” When Ashe looks to her, Penelo is tapping a free finger against the bone-pale wood of her rod, her expression inquisitive. When Ashe raises an eyebrow, Penelo clarifies, “I mean, wouldn’t it be more reasonable to be able to steal some oddly placed metal first, and to have to kill the chocobo to get its soul?”

“I see your point, and agree, but the rumors were clear in their detail. Fran, can you do it?” She does not think to taunt the Viera into testing her mettle; Fran is not the type to rise to such tactics. She simply asks, expecting an answer, whether by word or action.

“I suppose we will see, Princess.” When Ashe looks from Penelo to the Viera, she nearly gasps at the intensity of Fran’s gaze, fixed and iron-hard on Ashe’s face. 

When they finally catch the chocobo’s attention, it is Fran who almost seems to glide toward their prey, daggers in both hands and moving quick as a blur. Ashe is quick to follow, with Penelo not far behind her, voice suddenly eerie with the rigid intonation of black magicks. Ashe raises her greatsword before her as she charges into the fray, and lets out a shout to alert Fran to her coming; accordingly, the Viera swings herself by the beast’s feathers over both mount and swinging blade, and Ashe’s vision is soon cluttered by spattered blood and scattered plumage.

When the battle is ended -- after nearly an hour of staggering her strikes so as to give Fran the time she needs to search for the soul with deft fingers -- Ashe finds the gemsteel, scattering light from the sinking sun, and cuts it free from where it is strangely embedded in the chocobo’s skin beneath a thin patch of its scarlet feathers. The metal has a weight to it that startles Ashe, and she wonders just how much heft the synthesized Tournesol will have to its name. 

She looks to Fran, and worries for several moments that she will choke on her own throat at the sight of the Viera wearing more blood than armor. Exhaustion and satisfaction are freely mixed in the erstwhile pirate’s eyes, and at Ashe’s glance, she raises the soul -- a shimmering orb as crimson as the dead beast’s blood and plumage both. “I hope that this will be worth the effort,” she says, giving the soul an underhanded toss in Ashe’s direction.

Something in Fran’s voice makes Ashe’s own hitch as she searches for a reply, just barely catching the loot in her gauntleted fingers. “I am certain it will be,” she eventually gets out, hoping that the dried blood from the beak-gouged cut across her eyebrow masks her flush. 

\------------

The hunt for the last critical piece of gossip takes days, but soon enough Ashe finds herself with the other two women at her side, deep in the Henne mines, magick roiling heavily enough in the air that Ashe can feel it stirring against her skin like a breeze. Fran’s breaths are almost snarls. Only Penelo seems at home in it -- indeed, she almost seems more alive than usual. 

The keeper of precepts hovers at the end of the chamber, crackling with energy and thrumming with such power that Ashe feels real battle-fear for the first time in weeks. Its form is alien, its voice like that of a child. 

“And so we must slay this for the Serpentarius?” Fran asks, rage only just reined.

“Actually,” Ashe says, “rumors say that it must be pilfered from --”

“It has no pockets to pick, Ashelia!” Fran cries, her voice almost normal in her incredulity, and behind them, Penelo laughs freely.


End file.
